


Let's Turn On and Be Not Alone

by Alvitr



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending, Clint Feels, Clint Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I'm not really selling this well am I, Loki Feels, Loki Needs a Hug, Loki fights for the good, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies, everything is sad and hopeless, future!fic, references to TDW, stupid talking keeps getting in the way of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 19:44:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alvitr/pseuds/Alvitr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the world, when all is lost, Loki and Clint sit down and share a drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Turn On and Be Not Alone

A dark, spare, impersonal room. One of many in the honeycomb-like structure of the underground bunker they all call home now -- what is left of them. There is little to distinguish it from the others -- a scattering of personal effects, many worn or broken but all the more cherished, as they are all that remains. 

The door opens. Two figures enter. A light flickers, sputters, and turns on, the generator humming and kicking into gear, illuminating the two men that now stand there, motionless, breathing in the poorly ventilated air harshly. 

After a few seconds, Clint clears his throat. “Wish I could smoke in here,” he mutters.

“Do you smoke?” Loki says, his lips turning up into a small smile. “I’ve never seen you.”

“I used to, when I was a kid. But I quit.”

“Good. Those Midgardian cigarettes are vile.”

“Yeah, they’ll kill you. So will a lot of things. Doesn’t really matter much now, does it?”

“Don’t say such things,” Loki scolds, but his heart clearly isn’t in it. He wanders over to the narrow bed and sits listlessly on it, then frowns, and fumbles around beneath the mussed covers he is sitting on and produces a small, cracked plastic case. “Who is … Ziggy Stardust?”

Clint laughs a little and takes the CD from him. “Earth music. It was in my bag when we … left.” He puts it down, then fumbles around in his belongings until he finds what he’s looking for: a bottle of liquor that is both vicious and most likely illegally brewed. It’s been awhile since anyone saw anything that could properly be called alcohol. Tony had hated it. This moonshine may have even found its origin with him -- Clint wouldn’t have put it past him.

“The main event,” he says, displaying the bottle.

“I see you are not all talk, then, Hawk.”

“You should know that by now.”

“True.”

He has no glasses. They’ll have to share the bottle.

Sitting next to Loki, he unscrews the cap and takes a sniff. It’s incredibly disgusting. With a sigh, he raises it to his mouth. “Bottoms up,” he says, and takes a swig. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Loki watching him, a look of mischievous curiosity that has become thoroughly familiar to him glinting in his eyes. When Clint swallows the liquor down and lowers the bottle, he gags a little and sticks out his tongue; Loki laughs and takes it from him.

“My turn,” he says. He looks at the bottle for a moment, then holds it aloft. “This pitiful concoction will have to make do as _minnisveig_ ,” he said, and then, for Clint’s benefit, “a memorial toast.” He doesn’t say anymore. It isn’t necessary. He takes a drink, and they both think about them all: Thor -- dead; Tony -- dead; Steve -- mad; Natasha -- comatose, never to wake again; Bruce -- constantly drugged because he could no longer contain the beast. Asgard, a hollow ruin. Midgard, nearly that.

Loki hands the bottle back to Clint, licking his lips, no comment or recognition on the sour, rotten taste. Their fingers touch, and a tremor passes through Clint’s hands. Not for the first time, he wonders how it's happened that out of everyone, it is the two of them, Clint Barton and Loki, who are left standing. What kind of fucked up joke is that? So much has happened, and yet here they are again -- the god of chaos and his faithful minion, but now the bonds that tie them together are made out of desperation and necessity, and not madness and magic.

Loki is watching him closely, as though he can read his mind. Nonetheless he asks, "What are you brooding about, Barton?" as he takes the bottle back.

Clint could lie. He could say he was thinking about what they'd lost, about Nat, or even about what was to come - their mission for tomorrow. The last mission. It would be easy and plausible. Loki would know that he was lying. Clint knows, instinctively, that he would not call him on it.

But Clint opens his mouth and the truth comes out, like a puff of steam from a boiling kettle. "Why’d you pick me?"

He can tell from Loki's expression, the sudden guardedness, followed by discomfort, that he knows exactly what Clint is getting at, despite the vagueness of his statement. It is something they have never openly discussed. In the early days, when Loki was first accepted among their numbers, Clint had certainly shouted and screamed about it. Loki had simply stared, impassive, immoveable, while Thor had begged Clint for understanding, given excuses for his brother’s behavior; but for a long time they had fallen on deaf ears, and he thinks now, remembering the way Loki had looked at him in those moments that he had known this would be the case. That it was not yet time. And he would wait.

Later, when desperation and forced companionship had softened the harshness between them, Clint had given in a little. Yes, logically, he could see the truth of the matter: that Loki had been used, taken advantage of, made to play a role, his weaknesses twisted and magnified by the will of others. And now he fought alongside them against those others, and everything depended on the outcome of their fight. He couldn’t hold onto this anger. It got in the way.

Still, Loki said nothing, and neither did he. It was still not yet time.

Now it is just the two of them. The time has come. There will never be another chance.

Clint waits for Loki’s answer.

Loki sips the hooch. He draws a long, deep breath. “I said it then, did I not?”

“You have heart,” Clint recites it back at him. He’s heard those words, many times, in his dreams, though not as often now as he had in the early days. “What’s it mean?”

“It means --” Loki stops but doesn’t finish. Clint holds out his hand for the bottle but Loki sticks it into the space between where their thighs almost touch and takes hold of his hand instead, turning it palm up and tracing the lines on it. “When I looked at you,” he starts again, “for a moment I could see everything -- everything you were, all the possibilities of who you could be. It was …” he trails off. It takes a moment for him to find the word. “Beautiful.”

“How?” Clint asks. “The scepter?”

“In part.” Loki closes his hand up and lets go of it. Unsure of what to do with it, now that it is free again, he reaches for the bottle again, pries it from the spot Loki secured it in. “I was connected to so much power at the time. I couldn’t control it. It came in flashes and waves. I was … sick with it.”

They are silent again for some time, exchanging the bottle back and forth. Clint feels himself getting steadily drunk. He can’t tell if it is affecting Loki. He wonders what kind of a drunk he would be. He lets himself imagine the possibilities.

It was … beautiful.

His face feels hot. He finds it hard to let the silence sit.

“I felt safe,” he finds himself saying. “Sometimes I even miss it. I hate that.”

Loki makes a humming sound, instantly understanding what he is talking about, as though fifteen minutes or so hadn’t passed since their conversation had ceased. “It feels good to have something to believe in.”

“Uncomplicated.”

“Yes.”

Another stretch of silence. And then, to Clint’s incredible shock, Loki says, “I am sorry, Barton.”  
He feels sort of breathless. Those words sound alien coming from Loki’s mouth. He supposes he could be full of shit. He’s Loki; of course that possibility exists. But what purpose would it serve? Now, after all this time?

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, surprising even himself. Loki looks bizarrely stricken. Clint puts a hand on his shoulder, turning his body slightly towards him. “It doesn’t have any power over me anymore.”

And it’s true, it doesn’t. That’s why he can lean in and push his lips against Loki’s slack ones, and know he’s doing it because he wants to, and not for any other reason.

After they break the kiss, there is a tremendous feeling of relief, almost palpable in the air. Loki gives a shaky sort of laugh. He drains the last of the alcohol, sets the bottle of the floor, and lets it roll away. He picks up the CD case again. “I wish I could hear this,” he says.

Clint laughs too. “Why?”

“Because you like it.”

Clint thinks for a minute, and then digs around under the bed. He finds his old discman (Tony had found it hilarious when he’d seen it -- ancient technology!), now banged up and mended with silver duct tape in places. He hits the “play” button, knowing it is dead. Then he pops open the battery compartment and lets the double As fall out into his palm. He hands them to Loki. “Got any tricks for this?” he asks.

Loki looks at him curiously. He rolls the batteries around in his hands for a minute, then … breathes on them. He hands them back. “Try it now.”

When he takes the batteries back they feel warm and tingly. He slots them back into the walkman and hits “play”. The digital screen lights up. He grins. 

They have to share the headphones, the way they shared the bottle. Clint stretches the band out as far as it will go, and puts it around his neck, pulling Loki close in so that his ear is near to the right side ear pad. He turns the volume up as high as it will go. The CD is already inside; it’s the only one he has. After a moment of thought, he hits the “next” button until it is on the last track. 

“This is my favorite song,” he says. “I always listen to it when I’m … alone.” 

Loki says nothing. He just rests his head against where Clint’s shoulder meets his chest as the opening strands of “Rock n Roll Suicide” begin to play.

As the song builds, Clint allows himself to pretend that they were doing this differently. He conjures a scene in his head; he’s behind the wheel of a car, Loki next to him in the passenger seat. For some reason the car takes on the appearance of the old Chevrolet Cavalier Barney taught him how to drive in. They’re driving along the interstate, somewhere with long rolling plains, like Iowa, where he’d grown up. Loki’s feet are propped up on the dash. Clint is fast forwarding through the cassette (though the tape deck in the Chevy had been broken, he remembered), teaching Loki about rock & roll.

_Oh no, love, you’re not alone_  
You’re watching yourself, but you’re too unfair  
You got your head all tangled up, but if I could only make you care 

Maybe Loki is imagining something too, he thinks. Something Clint can’t picture, weird and Asgardian. Riding with Clint on some legendary beast through the landscapes of his youth. Stargazing at an alien sky. Whispering the secrets of the many universes into Clint’s ears. Who knows?

_Oh no, love, you’re not alone_  
No matter what or who you’ve been  
No matter when or where you’ve seen 

Maybe Loki’s not thinking about anything at all.

_All the knives seem to lacerate your brain_  
I’ve had my share, I’ll help you with the pain  
You’re not alone 

He becomes aware that one of Loki’s hands has drifted up to his chest and is clenching the material of his shirt. Other than that, he hasn’t moved. Clint lifts his own hand, covers Loki’s with it, unclenches it, smooths it out flat.

_Just turn on with me, and you’re not alone_

Loki looks up at him. His face is open, vulnerable. Clint’s never seen anything like it.

_Let’s turn on and be not alone_

Somehow they’re kissing again. Well, somehow -- it’s because Clint leant over and just did it. It’s more shocking than the first kiss. Literally: he swears he feels tingling, like whatever magic Loki did on those batteries is still present on his breath and he’s expelling whatever’s left of it directly into Clint.

_Gimme your hands, ‘cause you’re wonderful_

This feels less like something they can laugh off. More like something that could break them into pieces.

_Oh, gimme your hands_

The song ends. Their mouths continue to move against each other, stuttering and stopping, inelegant. He wonders if Loki saw this when he first looked at him, when he told Clint he had heart. Possibly not, because Loki doesn’t seem to know what to do next anymore than Clint does. They’re just moving on instinct.

But when Clint pulls the headphones off his neck and throws them to the side and slides his hands under Loki’s shirt, Loki pulls away. He’s flushed and panting, shaking a little, and he looks miserable. He puts the back of his hand across his eyes, as though he’s shielding them from the wind, and breathes slowly in and out. 

“What’s wrong?” Clint asks, and feels stupid, because honestly, what isn’t?

Loki’s mouth makes a variety of shapes in quick succession, cycling through a barrage of emotions and unable to settle on one. When Clint tugs his arm away, his eyes are red-rimmed but dry. 

“It --” Loki says, his voice thick -- “it has all been for naught.”

“What has?”

“Everything. All that I planned for, all my schemes. None of it matters. It will all end in failure. It already has --” His voice cracks at this, and he presses his hand tightly to his mouth, keeping it all locked in, and makes a noise that sounds like retching.

There are few less desired noises to hear from your partner after a round of lip locking, but Clint soldiers through it. He slides his hands up and down Loki’s biceps as he gasps helplessly behind his clenched fingers. He thinks about Loki’s face the day that Thor died: pale but emotionless, even when Jane exploded in fury at him, even when she hit him over and over until someone (Steve maybe?) pulled her away. How he’d said nothing when Jane told him how Thor had mourned Loki’s death, and it had all been a trick anyway, and he couldn’t even shed a tear now that Thor was gone, really gone.

Loki had said nothing, and then Jane had left the next day with Selvig to a different outpost, and none of them have heard from her since then. She could still be alive, Clint supposes. Communication is difficult these days.

Now he watches as Loki chokes on some kind of grief and regret, but he isn’t sure what it is for. Possibly everything. Watching him now, Clint supposes that Loki was the sort of person who saved it all up until he couldn’t stand it anymore, and then ate his own heart out in rage and self-disgust. Luckily, Clint knows something of how to deal with this. He lowers Loki’s body down onto the bed and lays next to him, his arms loosely around him, and waits while Loki works through it all, until at last, tears slowly trickle out of the corners of his eyes, sliding down the side of his face and disappearing into his hair. His breath evens out and the hand over his mouth grows limp, and Clint moves it away and kisses him.

“Better?” he asks.

Loki nods slowly. He looks exhausted.

“Tomorrow’s tomorrow,” Clint says. “Tonight is now.”

Loki nods again, and pulls Clint down to kiss him again. His mouth tastes salty, even though he didn’t cry much; or maybe coppery, like blood. Clint pulls Loki to him, and now they are laying on their sides. Loki’s arms and legs twine themselves around Clint, like some kind of plant. He’s still wearing his boots; for that matter, Clint is too. He pulls away, sits up, and starts pulling them off of Loki’s feet, simultaneously kicking off his own. Loki unbuttons his shirt, then sits up as well and pulls Clint’s t-shirt over his head. All of this is done in silence. It’s like a spell is over them, or maybe just that there is nothing left to say. In no time at all they are both bare, stripped away to nothing.

Clint had thought it would be desperate, but instead it is almost dreamlike. There is a sort of inevitability to the whole thing. His fingers skim over Loki’s skin, following the paths of the swirling tattoos over his torso, that Loki had said helped him conduct power. Each light touch makes Loki shake and shudder. Loki’s hands press bruises into Clint’s hips. He wonders how long those bruises will last for; how long he will last for them to last, when it all goes down tomorrow. He pushes the thought away.

When they finally interlock their bodies together, it’s like they are an arrow shaft settled comfortably against a bow’s rest; or strange elemental energies finely honed with the pure intention of a sorcerer. 

Or they are just two creatures, a human and a god, sharing what they have left in what little time they have left, and it is enough.

Tomorrow they will wake and do what needs to be done, and they won’t think about failure, or what they will even do if somehow, impossibly, they win. But if their thoughts drift back to tonight, they might smile, and now that at least they didn’t spend it alone.

**Author's Note:**

> "Hey," I thought, "I really love Loki/Clint but it always takes so long for them to get together because they have so many issues. Maybe I can write something in the future where they've moved past all that and can finally get together. And maybe it can be the most depressing thing ever and is filled with imminent doom, dead characters, and desperation."
> 
> SOUNDS FUN RIGHT
> 
> [David Bowie - Rock n Roll Suicide](http://youtu.be/9jg4ekLG9Zo) (from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars).
> 
> [Minnisveig](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbel#Minni).


End file.
